Eric Mottram "discoursing" on his contemporaries (older peers ?): Stephen Spender, Colin Wilson, Albert Camus and poetry and the arts just en passim...

35, Queenhill Road,
Selsdon, Surrey

August 8, 1958

[Addressed to me, then in Heidelberg]

Dear Wignesan,

I've now received the article, the poems, the Hemingway article and your letter: many thanks for being so thoughtful. But I'm not even replying to your letter; I haven't read the poems, and I haven't read the Hemingway. Apologies : I’m just scribbling this letter to « reassure » you. I’ll write properly soon. Meanwhile, let me say I’m struggling to read « The Outsider » which I gave up in boredom and irritation last year and have begun again in deference to yourself. Camus’s « The Rebel » seems to me a much more original contribution to our times. But I enormously enjoyed your account of meeting [Colin] Wilson – let me say, you really must be more critical of these personalities. Obviously Wilson appeals to your own rebelliousness – but for goodness’ sake don’t become a rebel’s minion ! There’s something deeply conservative in poetry : rebellion in the arts is always a disguise for a profound human continuity, isn’t it ?
I do hope you and your wife are well and happy, and the newcomer. Did anything arise out of the [Stephen] Spender contact. He’s a useful person to know, however appalling his poetry is these days.

I’m having a poem published in « Poetry Chicago » – it is a very poor one – just my luck ! Otherwise I find my existence here too dull and disturbing to get down to work. I’ll have to change my enviornment : I just need quiet and routine.

Yours,

Eric

(c) T. Wignesan - Paris, 1958-2023